Measuring recent changes of insurance gross premiums distribution using ten inequality measures: Case study of Croatia

Abstract

This paper investigates the extent of gross premium distributions inequality for life and non-life insurance in Croatia in the period 2000–2012. The number of companies for life insurance was the same in 2000 and 2012, at 17. The number of non-life insurance companies varied between 16 and 24, and was 20 at the end of 2012. The Lorenz curve and nine numerical concentration measures applied mostly show a slight decrease of a moderate concentration for both types of insurance over time, with only the Rosenbluth index being an exception, showing a mild increase of concentration. The concentration of gross premium is slightly stronger for non-life then for life insurance. The standard errors of the trend models for the entropy indexes are smaller, and coefficients of determination are higher for the quadratic compared to the linear trend models for both types of insurances, life and non-life. Since the forecasts’ quality measures for both types of insurance show that the quadratic trend is superior compared to the simple linear trend model, it was used for short-term forecasting of the entropy indexes. The quadratic trend model gave forecasts showing digressive-progressive dynamics for non-life, and progressive-digressive for life insurance entropy indexes.